Unfortunate Implications/Video Games: Difference between revisions

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* ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' has an unintentional variant in the ''[[Super Robot Wars Alpha]]'' and ''[[Super Robot Wars Original Generation]]'' canons. The good guy mecha have a lot of German names, and the bad guy mecha (for the Balmarians) are in Hebrew. [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement|No more need be said.]]
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]'' has [[Big Bad]] Ganondorf, revealed in ''Ocarina Of Time'' to be a [[Dark -Skinned Redhead]]. He is a member of the thieving Gerudo race, who have the same appearance. One of the most evil characters in the series came from the [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]] to certain Middle Easterners. <ref> The crescent and star was on the original Mirror Shield found in the Spirit Temple, was [[Bowdlerise|bowdlerised]] for international release, aside from the whole "brown-skinned thieves living in a desert" thing</ref> The rest of the Gerudo are unfriendly, but seem to be on the side of good.
** ''[[Phantom Hourglass]]'' has the blacksmith Zaus, who is also a dark-skinned redhead. He helps Link by forging the Phantom Sword. Also, the Gerudo-like Jolene is technically an antagonist who chases you around challenging you to duels, but she's not a completely bad person. Her real beef is that she's trying to get to Linebeck in revenge for stealing her treasure {{spoiler|[[Slap Slap Kiss|and because she's still slightly in love with him.]]}}
* ''[[Resident Evil 5]]'' features [[Mighty Whitey|a white American who saves Africa]] from [[Scary Black Man|Scary Black Zombies]] with help from [[But Not Too Black|a very light-skinned African woman]]. And later in the game you fight your way through several African villages swarming with African zombies in grass skirts and clay masks howling incoherently while throwing spears. An in-game journal by one of the villagers before they were infected with [[The Virus]] attempts to justify this by pointing out the strangeness of this behavior, and it is actually one of the first signs that something has gone terribly wrong, but it still plays directly into stereotypes associated with Africans, and the message becomes that villagers would only act like traditional Africans before Europeans arrived if they were infected by a virus that brings out that reduces them to animalistic monsters. Not to mention the fact that they are all helpless and enslaved to a blonde-haired blue-eyed [[Social Darwinist]], until said white American arrives to save the day. Even though he has a black African partner and another important black ally, it still reads like a typical [[Mighty Whitey]] setup.
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*** Consider also Little Lamplight in Fallout 3, a town populated entirely by children. Whenever a resident reaches the age of sixteen, he or she is banished. The logical way for them to maintain their numbers would be plenty of teenage pregnancies, shortly followed by tearing the mothers away from their children once they reach the age of banishment. Come to think of it, no wonder everyone in the place is such an asshat.
** The Khajit. They speak with Eastern European-style accents and tend to come in two varieties; Bandits and highwaymen or in traveling trading caravans (or as slaves in Morrowind). They also have racial bonuses that lean them towards thief/assassin territory. While the racial bonuses could be hand-waved by their nature as [[Cat People]], the rest sounds an awful lot like common stereotypes of [[Roma]]. Hardly helps that their homeland is the source of one of the Elder Scrolls' few true narcotics.
* In the original ''[[Star Control]]'', most of the Alliance (or "good") species didn't look very alien to humans (beautiful humanoid women, furry vulpine-lupine-rodent creatures, pretty silicon-based life forms, pterodactyl-like organisms, etc.). The Hierarchy (or "evil") species were invariably [[Starfish Aliens|ugly]], except for the humanoid Androsynth, who had [[Turned Against Their Masters]], so the use of [[What Measure Is a Non -Cute?]] was glaringly obvious. The sequel reversed this to some degree, since the player character had to ally with both cute and non-cute aliens, but none of the old Hierarchy species allied with him permanently, if at all. And even if you do agree that {{spoiler|[[Green -Skinned Space Babe|space aliens should only be allowed to have sex with humans if said aliens are attractive by traditional human standards]], the accidental invocation of [[Bring Out Your Gay Dead]] was unfortunate.}}
* [http://www.arcadiafan.de/Kirby/Images/sp614.png Wham Bam Rock], from ''[[Kirby]] Super Star''. In the DS remake he was [http://wikirby.info/images/8/84/Wham_Bam_Rock.JPG redesigned] to look more like a Shakokidogu (an ancient clay figure from Japan with an extremely stylized female form) and less like a blatant [[Ethnic Scrappy]]. Good move, I say.
** Wham Bam Rock's appearance, meanwhile, was switched over to [[One -Winged Angel|Wham Bam]] ''[http://images.wikia.com/kirby/en/images/5/59/Whambamjewel.png Jewel]'', his on-steroids counterpart from "Helper to Hero". The lips are less massive, and he has three eyes, but he still resembles a blackface a bit too closely for comfort.
* ''[[Valkyria Chronicles (Video Game)|Valkyria Chronicles]]'': The Valkyrur themselves. {{spoiler|The legendarily angelic Valkyrur are responsible for the Darcsen Calamity and installed a traitor family of Darcsen as rulers, thus letting the shame of their betrayal become the incentive to keep their non-Valkyrur heritage (and thus the true identity of the Valkyrur as vicious conquerors) a secret. They're powerful, but they're also emotionally manipulative liars who used the pain they caused to elevate their own reputation. Guess which gender their [[One -Gender Race]] is.}}
** And one of the two good Valkyria is {{spoiler|a little girl who has the social graces of a wild animal until she's civilized by your team}}. Yeah. Ouch.
** ''VC'' wasn't too warmly received in China because [http://images.wikia.com/valkyria/images/a/a0/Nadine2.jpg the Darcsens] [http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101030172110/valkyria/images/8/87/Cordelia_Leanbluff.jpg look suspiciously] [http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111007123961/valkyria/images/thumb/7/75/Lynn.png/292px-Lynn.png Japanese]. Their story of seeking recognition [[Second Sino Japanese War|just don't sell in China]].
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** [[Black Dude Dies First]]. In ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'', it was the DARPA Chief and in ''MGS2'' it was Scott Dolph. The former's death is even more egregious when one considers that the DARPA Chief who dies on-screen is an impersonator and that the real dies ''before'' the events of the game.
*** ''MGS2'' pulls this ''twice'' - {{spoiler|the first [[Plotline Death]] of the second chapter is Peter Stillman}}.
** ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4]]'' also removed all of Vamp's sympathetic traits (like his noble goals and loyalty to Dolph's family) in favour of playing him for plain old gay panic with his [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]] fighting with Raiden.
*** Although Dolph and Fortune ''are'' both dead by the fourth game.
*** Not to mention Vamp's being Romanian and having some [[Magical Native American|bizarre magical traits]] (you can explain the healing with {{spoiler|nanomachines}}, but what about walking and dancing on water?)
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** In ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'', however, the black male is the [[Only Sane Man|Most well-balanced and well-adjusted member of the group.]] However, the black female wears traditional tribal garb and attacks with a spear. Talk about sidestepping a pot hole and falling off a bridge...
* In the first ''[[Suikoden]]'' game, there are 108 Stars of Destiny who are characters that are the keys to stopping the evil empire and saving the world. All of these characters are light-skinned except for one who is [[Ambiguously Brown]] and named ''Blackman''. Yeah, let that one sink in for a while.
* ''[[Fire Emblem]]'': The first obviously black character (not counting [[Dark -Skinned Redhead|Dark Skinned Redheads]] or [[Darkskinned Blonde|Blonds]]) of the series debuts in ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius (Video Game)|Path of Radiance]]''. His name? Devdan. How'd he debut? As "criminal" forced to serve Duke Tanas as punishment. He [[Third Person Person|talks in the third person]], and he's a [[Gentle Giant|borderline retarded]] whose "crime" was loitering in the duke's garden admiring the pretty flowers. All this in a game that [[Anvilicious|preaches]] that "racism is wrong." More like "racism against [[Animorphism|shape shifting]] [[Petting Zoo People]] is wrong, but racism against blacks? That's just funny!"
** I can't imagine arguments against the idea of racism would have been made regardless of his back story. Any other possible incarnation short of personality-less knight would have had similar issues given your forces are mercenaries, rebels and former criminals. Also his supports in [[Fire Emblem Tellius (Video Game)|Path of Radiance]] show evidence of him [[Obfuscating Stupidity]].
** The Tellius games also featured the lovely Republic of Begnion, a cabal of evil senators destroying the country from within. And the only one who can stop them is... ''the heir to the theocratic royal family.'' To quote the Lemuria entry above: take that, democracy!
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* ''[[Rogue Galaxy]]'' has only one planet with black people, who also turns to be the one planet devoid of technology (since the people have an aversion for it); the population is also savage, believes in human sacrifices, etc. Lilika (the one person from the planet who joins the party) is one of the most well-loved characters of the game, being sensate and at the same time a strong, independent woman. It's half a subversion, half played straight.
* In ''[[Myst]]'''s Stoneship Age, the Black Ship flag symbol resembles the Islamic star-and-crescent symbol.
* The enemies to be introduced in ''[[Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep (Video Game)|Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep]]'' were initially believed to be named the "Unbirths" [[Spell My Name With an "S"|due to a quirk of the Japanese language]]<ref>More specifically, a similar problem to [[Japanese Ranguage]], but using B and V instead of R and L.</ref> and were given the official description of being "the opposite of human life". Abortion [[Epileptic Trees|theories]] abounded. (They're actually called the Unversed, by the way.)
* In ''[[Time Crisis]]'', every character that deducts 1,000 points when shot (the other player character, Captain Rush from ''Time Crisis 4'') has been male. Every character that deducts 5,000 (Christy Ryan from ''II'', Alicia Winston from ''3'') has been female. Possibly justified with [[Distressed Damsel|Christy]], but 5,000 points seems a little harsh for [[Action Girl|Alicia]], a rather competent soldier (as we get to see in the console-exclusive Rescue Mission mode in ''3'') who, in a series first, is a female who ''[[Subverted Trope|doesn't]]'' get kidnapped.
* Long time popular franchise ''[[Super Mario Bros]]'' has followed the same typical formular with each game, [[Big Bad|Bowser]] kidnaps [[Damsel in Distress|Princess Peach]] and it's up to [[The Hero|Mario]] and friends to save her. In 2005, Nintendo decided to shake up the formula [[Day in The Limelight|by making Princess Peach the hero]] in ''[[Super Princess Peach (Video Game)|Super Princess Peach]]''. But, unfortunately, the first Mario game to focus on a female character, and her powers are controlled by her emotions, which led to fans referring to her as [http://hail-nekoyasha.deviantart.com/art/Super-PMS-Peach-30235959 Super PMS].
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** There was also the fact that Samus seemed to freeze up and lose herself when she discovered that Ridley had somehow returned from the dead, despite the fact that various other sources, even the ''Metroid'' Manga, which is what this game apparently directly used as source material, had Samus stop being afraid of Ridley.
*** Take also into account the fact that Samus has killed Ridley ''four times'' before ''Other M'' - and not frozen up on any of those occasions. The makers of ''[[Other M]]'' say they didn't take the stories of the ''[[Metroid Prime]]'' games into account, which still leaves two times. Defenders of the game claim that a) she thought that the last time, he was dead for sure, b) she was emotionally vulnerable after the events of Super Metroid, c) she realized that {{spoiler|she was partially responsible for this Ridley's development}}, or d) some combination of the above.
** Various reviewers accused the game of sexism, including [[He -Man Woman Hater|Yahtzee]] of ''[[Zero Punctuation]]'' and [[The Spoony Experiment|Spoony]]. Others, such as [[Moviebob]] in his Game Overthinker persona, accused the critics of the game of being oversensitive or sexist. As you can probably tell, the issue is a bit touchy...
** And to round out the [[Fan Dumb]], [http://g4tv.com/videos/48335/Talkabout-Metroid-Other-M/ the reviewer for X-Play], among others, was accused of hating the game simply because she was "a feminist". Yes, and? Why would that be pejorative?
** Many of the people bashing the game often mentioned "Japanese culture" being a factor in the direction taken with the game. While Japanese gender relations are... complex, critics are using it both to attack the game's portrayal of Samus, while other critics are using it as a defense. The problem is, they're ''partially'' right. It can get even more uncomfortable if detractors say that [[Retro Studios]] should have stuck with the games not necessarily because they were more skilled with their handling of the series (a much more valid argument), but because their "American" approach automatically makes it better.